It would be so so easy to illustrate the truth of Albert Einstein’s statement by writing about a famous and hugely successful person. But the following is a true story about someone who, even if I gave you his correct full name, you would not have heard of. I shall call him by his first name, which is James.

I was first introduced to James when I was asked to coach twenty-five of the top salespeople working with a large Financial Services organisation. These were the top twenty-five of two thousand salespeople, so you can imagine they were very successful already. Except for James, they were extremely well dressed, looked fit and were very articulate. James was almost the complete opposite of that. Never the less, based on his sales production, he had earned his place in the top twenty-five.

When I asked the twenty-four how they described in fifteen seconds what they did for their clients, they had some very interesting and sophisticated ways of describing themselves. One example was – I help people minimise the effects of taxation during their lifetimes and ensure that as much of their estate as possible is passed on to their families on their death rather than  the government.

Another was –  I help people to plan their financial affairs so that they are able to retire ten years earlier than they would otherwise be able to do so.

James said  – I sell life insurance, pensions and savings plans. Not exactly a stimulating and exciting elevator pitch!

I was fascinated by James and wanted to find out how he had earned his place in this elite group. I sat down with him in one of the coffee breaks to find out more. He told me that he had worked as a postman for many years, but when his mother became quite ill,  he was unable to care for her properly on his postman’s salary. He had applied for several other jobs without success and then he heard that very good incomes could be made in financial services and that, because it was commission only based, they were not too fussy who they took on. He told me that after the interview when he was offered a position, and found out what he could earn if he was successful, he became absolutely committed and determined to succeed in his new career. He sold his car and everything else he thought could do without, and raised enough money to be able to keep himself and his mother for several months whilst he was learning his new trade.

James tried many of the sophisticated approaches used by the top sellers in his company, but was not comfortable with them and failed dismally. Then he decided to try a totally different approach, one that he invented completely by himself. This approach quickly earned him the nickname ‘Tower Block Jim’. This is what he did.

Every day, James took a bus or train to the nearest Tower Block of apartments. He would take the lift to the top floor and then walk down and ring the bell on every front door. If it were answered, he would say – Good afternoon Sir (or Madam). My name is James representing the (XYZ) Company. I sell life insurance, pensions and investment plans. I am here today introducing myself and making appointments for next Wednesday with people who would like to buy one or other of those. Would you like to make an appointment with me too.

I cringed at this approach, but the fact is that by the time James had reached the ground floor, he had always made at least four appointments and often many more, and when he went back, he sold to every single one of them. They had after all, already told him they wanted to buy from him. That was his sole method of generating his significant level of new business. He never even asked for referrals and James had been doing that for seven years. That is what I consider one of the most extraordinary examples of success being 80 per cent attitude and 20 per cent skill.

I am also delighted to say that as a result of the training workshops I ran for the company, James’ skill level increased by more than 100% as did his self-esteem, attitude and income.

What results might you get from that during the rest of the day if you applied what they taught you?

What would you pay for that?

The great news is that the cost is NOTHING!

Just log on to You Tube, type in a relevant key word or phrase in the search box – select a video, watch and learn.

I absolutely guarantee you that if you do this every morning, every day will bring you closer to achieving your goals. Just do it! Make the time. Get up fifteen to twenty minutes earlier than you normally do, make yourself a cup of coffee or green tea, search, sit back in front of your device, listen, watch and get inspired to have an absolutely amazing day.

I still do it every day. Will you? How about starting right now!?

Don’t know where to start – well maybe just type in Bruce King in the search box, OR…

Some of my favorites:

Tony Robbins – YES!

Napoleon Hill – I learned so much from him early on in my career but I’m definitely not as old as he was

Les Brown – superb!

Jeffrey Gitomer – you decide if his sales approach will work for you.

Max Soderpalm (only in Swedish – great stuff if you are Swedish)

This one:  Don Draper is just so cool – and dangerous – But I LOVE it – hence the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iaTRqIafU

And there are thousands more -

• They are nervous, apprehensive and fear rejection
• They forget to ask
• They feel it is rather demeaning and they might sound desperate and are almost begging for business
• They do not know how to ask effectively
• It never seems to be an appropriate time to do so.

Here are my views on the first in that list…

It is perfectly OK to be nervous, apprehensive and a little fearful. Top athletes, top performers in every field suffer from nerves, apprehension and fear. I have worked with some top stage presenters. I have coached other presenters, politicians and chief executives of some well know companies on presentation skills and I can assure you that before they take to the stage, they are frequently nervous, apprehensive and fearful. Some even get physically sick. But they still go on, they still perform and so should you. It was Woody Allen who said ‘90% of success is just showing up’ and 90% of success in gaining an ongoing stream of referrals is just asking.

If you don’t like rejection – tough! As salespeople, we get paid to sell AND we get paid to be rejected. Have you ever been into a shop to have a look around and the assistant came up to you and asked ‘May I help you?’ You probably said something like “No thank you – I’m just looking”. You rejected them. Did they go off into the storeroom and sulk and vow never to ask anyone if they could help them ever again? No of course they did not. It is their job to ask that question. It is what they are paid to do.

You too are going to have to face rejection when you ask people for referrals. Ten to fifteen per cent of your customers or clients are never going to give you a referral. The only way you are going to find out they are never going to is to ask them, and more than once. Each time they will say NO!

BUT 85% to 90% will give you referrals if you ask for them effectively.

If you are apprehensive, nervous, fearful and don’t like being rejected, that’s OK. But if you are not prepared to overcome that and ask anyway, I will be blunt; maybe you should not even be in sales. It is what you are paid to do and no doubt very well paid indeed – almost certainly more than most shop assistants.

For my responses to the other four reasons, get my latest book Winning Sales Referrals – a complete step by step process to winning all the sales you could ever want – just from referrals. It’s available here and of course on Amazon. Just search for Winning Sales Referrals.

Here is what one reader wrote to us recently:

“I have just done a campaign based on your fantastic book ‘Winning Sales Referrals’ and it has had superb results with some people providing as many as 24 referrals.” Alex McBarnet. CEO The Bushcraft Company.

Bruce King

My answer is unequivocally YES!

Aside from the most obvious benefits, leaving a voicemail message is also a branding exercise. The more times a prospect hears your name and branding message, the more likely they are to return or take your subsequent call. It is also worth mentioning here that it can take up to ten attempted contacts with your perfect prospect before having a conversation. Most salespeople quit after their third attempt. (More on Perfect Prospect Profiling in future newsletter).

You may have heard me say that Success is 80 percent preparation and 20 percent showing up and the key to effective VoiceMail Branding is to be prepared. Yet even the most professional salespeople I listen to when coaching them on live sessions are almost always unprepared. As a result they either hang up when put through to a voicemail or leave a really ineffectual message that is most unlikely to result in a call back or other call to action and equally as likely to ensure their next message is ignored as soon as the recipient hears their name.

The ideal voicemail message should be no longer than 20 to 25 seconds. It should start with your name, your company’s name or business name, your telephone number and the time and date of your call – that last item makes you sound very professional and efficient and especially as so few people do it.

That information should be followed with an interest-creating, curiosity-building message. It should be a message that will encourage your prospect to respond as soon as they hear it. Do not give too much information that might allow your prospect to make a decision without following up on your call to action. The content of your message and the way you deliver it can also either enhance or detract from your brand image and your how your prospect perceives your importance and credibility.

That should be followed by a call to action. Tell them what you want them to do. Do you want them to call you? Do you want them to take your next call? Do you want them to visit a website landing page or email you? Do you want them to speak with the customer who referred you to them and then call you?

Here is an example of one of my own voicemail messages…

Good morning Mr Jones. My name is Bruce King from The Sales Accelerator Academy on 01923 859977. I am calling at 8.45 am on Tuesday the 11th of April. I am working with a number of companies in a similar field to your own and whose salespeople are failing to meet or exceed their sales targets. I have identified several common reasons for this and I would like to take just five minutes of your time on the telephone to discuss whether or not you are having a similar challenge and then possibly arrange a follow up call or meeting. Please call me back. Again, my name is Bruce King from The Sales Accelerator Academy and my telephone number is 01923 859977. I look forward to your call.

Make a note of who you left messages for and what you said for two reasons…

1. There is nothing worse than not knowing what message you left when a prospect calls you back

2. You may well have to leave more than one Voicemail Branding messages before you get a call back. You need several and you do not want to leave the same one twice – build on the story and the branding.

Write down the voicemail messages you intend to leave, re-write them as many times as you need to until they are as effective as you think they could possibly be and then record yourself delivering them. Play them back and re-record them until the wording and how you deliver them is as near perfect as they can possibly be.

To become World Class at telephone sales and appointment setting, get my book titled Cold Calling Made Easy. And to learn how to get at least 80% of your new business from referrals, get my book titled Winning Sales Referrals.

Bruce King

It is also possible to program your subconscious mind with a great deal more. For example, before going to sleep, spend just a few minutes imagining how you would like the following day to work out for you. Just picture the key things you want to happen actually happening. It is a simple technique and people who use it report extraordinary results. Their day works out precisely as they had pictured it.

For a detailed explanation of how the human brain works to achieve this and more mind power techniques I have taught thousands of people around the world to achieve extraordinary success in any area of their business and personal lives, get a copy of my eBook titled How To Unleash The Power Of The Mind here:

Bruce King

‘Hi’ followed by their first name
Hi is considered totally inappropriate and annoying when receiving a cold call from a stranger as is the use of their first name. The majority of people prefer the term Mr. or Mrs. Sir or Madam was also considered acceptable by many.

I sometimes respond by saying to them –”It is Mr. King to you until I might get to know you better.”

They often hang up

How are you today?
This one really annoys me because it is so blatantly not genuine. The caller has no interest in my health whatsoever and, as far as I am concerned, the only stranger who has the right to ask me that question when I first have a conversation with them would be a medical practitioner.

I often respond with – “my health is none of your business”, or I tell them I have some terrible disease.

On a recent call I responded to that question with – “Actually I am feeling quite dreadful today.”  Their response was – “Excellent! The reason I’m calling you is…”

I hung up

Hi (first name) – this is not a sales call
We both know it is a sales call – so why start with a lie? Which is precisely what I ask them.

They often hang up

I’m calling to speak with the homeowner
My response, even though I do not have a mortgage but want to test their reaction, is sometimes – “That is the Halifax Building Society. Would you like their telephone number?”

They usually hang up.

I’m calling to speak to the business owner?
If they want to speak with the business owner or a director, it is not hard to get that information before making the call. Not asking for a specific person is totally unacceptable and unprofessional in the B2B market.

If I am feeling particularly difficult, I can have a lot of fun with this. For example: “We have 350 shareholders – which one would you like to speak with?”

They almost always hang up.

If you use any of these openers – please stop it!

If there are any other particular cold call openers that really aggravate you, please email me and I will reproduce them in a future newsletter.

Other recent research concludes that in spite of all the most modern strategies for attraction marketing, 85 percent of all new business still starts with a cold call. So if you have to cold call, or know should be cold calling more often and are not 100 percent certain your cold calling techniques are World Class, you can get my eBook titled Cold Calling Made Easy. BUT do not purchase it if you have already read Telephone Sales & Appointment Setting – How To Become World Class. It is the same book and is selling 3 x as many since I changed the title. More on the power of titles, headlines, opening statements etc. in a future newsletter.

Bruce King

Taking this one stage further and to help you generate more business from your email communications – here’s another important sales tip that has helped many of my coaching clients increase their business significantly. It is this…

Do not always respond to emails with an email!  Instead – pick up the telephone and call them!

To highlight just how important this can be, here are two examples of how picking up the telephone helped me to do a lot more business than I might have otherwise.

Example 1

I recently received an email which said:

 Dear Bruce – thank you for the sales training session you conducted for us at two weeks ago. I am pleased to say that several of the team have increased their sales by more than 50%  since then. I’ll be in touch later in the year, probably around September.

Regards   XXXXXX

I could have responded with a note thanking them for thanking me, and saying I was looking forward to hearing from them later in the year. Instead I picked up the telephone and had a conversation. I asked several questions including (but not exclusively):

• What were the most important points the team learned?
• Which had the biggest impact on their sales so far?
• What else that we covered in the session should they be implementing that they have not done yet?
• Do you think they need more coaching on that / those particular subjects?
• What other companies do you have contact with who may also be experiencing a challenge with the sales team meeting their targets?
• Would you mind very much introducing me to them?
  Etc.

The result of that conversation was that we brought forward the next training session five months to May and I also received referrals to two other companies, one of which has already booked me.

Example 2

I received an email from an events organiser requesting a copy of my e brochure on keynote conference speaking, how much I would charge for my presentation and if I was available on a specified date. 

I could have responded by email but experience has taught me that just supplying the information as requested does not get me the work as often as I would like. Generally speaking the first thing they look at is the price and make a decision based on that – and often I am way more expensive than the several other speakers they have probably approached. Instead I picked up the telephone. It took me three calls before I could get to speak with the sender and then we had a conversation.  I asked several questions including (but not exclusively)

• How many people will be attending?
• What does your client want to achieve as a result of the conference and particularly as a result of my presentation?
• Will it be possible to speak with them before you or they make a decision so I can run through the content of my standard keynote speeches and discuss tailoring one to the specific outcomes they would like to achieve?
  Etc.,

The result of that conversation was that I did get to speak with the organiser’s client and I did get the booking, even though the price I quoted was fifty per cent higher than the other two people on the speakers shortlist.

My advice to you is to consider each email you receive carefully and ask yourself whether or not picking up the telephone and having a conversation would enhance the relationship, create other opportunities in the future and maybe turn the conversation into a sales opportunity.

Bruce King

Big mistakes! But before I explain why, let me ask you a few questions.

Out of the hundreds or thousands of emails you have received in the last few months:

•  How many were important and really needed your urgent and immediate attention?
• What’s the worst thing that ever happened as a result of delaying answering an important email for five or six hours?
• How many of the emails you receive are directly related to helping you achieve some of your major goals for the day or week?
• How many were really exciting – for example a huge order you had been hoping for? And even if they were – would it have mattered if you had read it a few hours later?
• How often did opening these emails distract you from a far more important task?
• How many times have you checked and opened emails, just to avoid doing something that you would rather not do – even though it had to be done or should be done? Worse still, opening them because you are not sure what else you should be doing!
• Did those questions make you question your handling of eMail?

Here is why opening emails first thing in the morning and very often during the day is a big mistake and what to do about it…

• By opening emails first thing in the morning you allow others to steal your agenda. What you had planned for the day or should have had planned, does not get started when it should have or could have.
• By opening emails frequently during the day you are distracted each time from what you are doing or should be doing. According to behavioral psychologists, it takes at least ten minutes to get completely re-focused and concentrate on what you were doing after any distraction.

Here is a simply and highly effective strategy I have taught many people in my coaching sessions. It takes a degree of discipline AND it works like magic!!!

On a single sheet of paper, in brief point form, every day …

• Have a list of the three or four key projects you are working on and especially those that will generate sales or move you towards achieving your goals for the day or the week.
• Have a list of the key things you need to do and the people you need to speak to achieve the above. You do all of these first.
• Only then do you open your emails and skim through them. Identify those that have a relevance to the above and deal with them appropriately.
• Continue with other important actions that will generate sales, move you towards achieving your goals and urgent admin.
• At 4pm or later – read the rest of your emails.
• Ruthlessly delete those that will not help you achieve your overall goals for the business.
• Respond to those that will help you achieve your goals.

Note: Most of the most successful people I know do not respond to several of my emails if they are not important to them. If they do, they are rarely long, polite replies. They are usually very brief – almost curt, but cover the relevant points accurately. I do not take offense – neither should you – neither should the sender.

Bruce King

This is a technique used by well trained negotiators and is what I call the ‘Orange Technique’. The way most people eat an orange is to first peel it and remove and eat one segment at a time.

What the well trained negotiator may want to do with you is to try to distract you from looking at your big picture by going over one segment of your proposal at a time and attempting to gain as large a concession as possible from you on that segment before discussing any other aspect or segment of your proposals. If you get drawn into this, you may find that the series of concessions you gave over numerous aspects or segments of your proposals, which may have seemed reasonable at the time you conceded each one, add up to massively more than you would ever have agreed to give away if you kept the big picture in mind. So keep the big picture in mind.

Bruce King

Other negotiation tips:

http://www.bruceking.co.uk/watch-out-for-nibblers-when-negotiating/

http://www.bruceking.co.uk/more-on-negotiating-strategies/

Survey questionnaires were issued to all and what I find really fascinating is the Number One Reason the majority of these people dislike selling. It is this:

They do not like asking people for money!

Just in case you may fall into this category, here is the one of many important things I pointed out to them…

‘Think of the last time you saw a product or service that a salesperson showed you that you were really excited about and really wanted to buy. I bet you could not get your cheque book or credit / debit card out quickly enough!’

So if you dislike asking people for money – get over it! Or give your product or service away. Your choice!

Bruce King